


Kim's Convenience

by nightfever



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, I have references to other vigilantes?, Tags Are Hard, this is mostly fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 10:25:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18050735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightfever/pseuds/nightfever
Summary: Owning a convenience store isn't that bad - until the boredom sets in.Luckily enough, Faye crosses paths with Frank Castle, the big, bag vigilante who is just the right reference for her ethics thesis.





	1. Chapter 1

Bleary eyed, Faye yawned as she shuffled into the too bright kitchen, giving a low discontented hum as she turned to fill the kettle to make her morning treat coffee - she liked to use flavoured coffees as an incentive to get up and to switch to plain old black coffee throughout the day, with maybe a little splash of milk if she was feeling frisky.

Grabbing the cat food from the pantry, she fed the yowling, aging and apparently starving feline despite having fed her when she woke up for the Asr prayer before tending to her own breakfast. Opening a packet of two day expired tofu, Faye figured she could make it last all day if she made breakfast noodles, and seeing it was Wednesday, she elected to treat herself. As the noodles simmered on low heat in an umami broth, Faye retreated to the bathroom to prepare for the day, singing and humming under breath.

Feet comfy in duck slippers, she plodded downstairs to flip the closed sign to open a few minutes after eight with a steaming bowl of noodle soup and lukewarm cup of coffee. By the time she had chugged the remainder of her drink and began sipping at the broth with the news turned on the small ancient TV in the corner by the register, customers had began to trickle in. Regulars, mostly, though there was the occasional new face, which Faye always greeted with nonetheless a gracious smile despite the early hour, or as the sun waxed and waned over Hell’s Kitchen as she worked on her thesis.

* * *

 

The first time she had met Frank Castle, it was between Maghrib and Isha when he came in - dressed in all black with heavy boots and a hood pulled over his head, “I have a no hoods rule,” Faye said, moving her eyes between her laptop screen, the mysterious figure and the last bowl of noodles from earlier that morning before stooping to slurp from her chopsticks.

He had passed her a quick once over when he entered, and at her request pulled his hood down with nothing more than a lingering look at the fact she was enthralled by her computer and didn’t seem to care about him. Passing through the aisles, Frank grabbed two cans of soup as he made his way toward the refrigerator section, spending a moment to lull over which Snapple he wanted, before returning through the aisle he came through and pausing to rethink his soup decision.

Faye had torn her attention away from the paragraph she kept trying (and failing) to read long enough to notice his plight, “Tell you what, four for two dollars.”

His mouth twitched upwards, looking up to meet her gaze, “I thought it was two for a dollar?”

“I’ll bend the rules for you,” she humoured, pulling her thick cardigan higher and trying not to flash him her neck as she adjusted her hijab, “You seem pretty interesting.”

He gave a hum as he turned his head away to think, “Not really - what gives you that impression.”

Faye found the way he tilted his head and smirked at her cute, even if he seemed a little imposing, “Who buys soup at this time of day? Besides, you just have a ‘you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had’ kinda vibe, y’know,”

“My days’ been pretty fine but you wouldn’t believe the week I’ve had,” he returned, shaking his head slightly and returning his attention to comparing the soups in his hands to the ones on the shelves.

After having spent all day staring at a computer screen with maybe an hour total of human interaction, this definitely piqued Faye’s interest. Her mouth curved as she faux squinted at him, holding up some noodles to drip the excess broth,

“Lemme guess - the company you work for is actually a shell corporation and you’re being indicted but you’ve actually been framed.”

She slurped her mouthful as the corners of his mouth twitched, looking up at her momentarily before placing one of the cans neatly back in place, “Yeah, somethin’ like that.” Beneath his boots, the lino creaked as he joined her at the counter, paying with a smile and a crumpled twenty, “It’s been a while since I’ve seen candy for a dime,”

“ _Yeah_! I noticed they stopped being a thing a few years ago so I figured I might as well.” Frank found the young woman’s enthusiasm to be entertaining and slightly endearing, giving a huff of a laugh and a ‘ _goodnight, ma’am_ ’ as he left and receiving a chirpy ‘ _g’night, sir_ ’ in return.


	2. Chapter 2

The second second time Frank Castle entered  _ Kim’s Convenience _ , it was a little after four in a faux spring afternoon.

He had been looking at tinned ravioli with a keen interest Faye couldn’t fathom, almost as if he would go home and take pleasure in eating it, while all she could hear the wet suction sound of it being shaken into a bowl and felt a gag bubbling up the back of her throat.

She must’ve made a noise, because Frank’s gaze snapped up to meet hers and he gave a confused look,

“You okay there, ma’am?”

Nose scrunched in distaste, Faye told him that she hated canned pasta with a passion,

He gave a teasing smile, “You judgin’ me or somethin’?”

The bell over the door jingled and Frank turned to see the new comer. In a striped orange ringer tee, the kid that entered the store reached maybe Frank’s elbow, aged somewhere between eight and eleven, and headed straight to the back of the store. Sensing an odd vibe, Frank approached the counter, placing his single can of ravioli down, taking a step back to inspect the selection of dime sweets and grabbing one of the small paper bags, folding over almost in half to make his selection.

Faye’s attention went straight to the expanse of his back as his head dipped below view, fixating on the dimples in the smooth strip of skin peaking from beneath his shirt and jacket. Stuck on the roof of her mouth, her tongue was dry, remedied when she painfully pulled it away and reached below the counter for the bottle of water by her feet for a sip. In the brief moment she was distracted, there was a crash of metal against floor and the tell tale noise of plastic wrapping skidding across the floor, accompanied by the sound of a struggle and Frank’s shout of ‘ _ stop, kid, stop _ ’.

As the kid had attempted to flee, he had, either intentionally or not, knocked over the rotating display thing, which hung the ‘three for a dollar’ mini packs of halal gummy candies, sending them across the lino tiles. The kid struggled against Frank, bag of Skittles still tightly clenched in hand as Faye came around from behind the counter,

“Hey - do you wanna tell me why you did that?” tugging her jeans up slightly, she crouched so she didn’t tower over the kid.

The dark haired boy didn’t say anything.

“I’m not angry with you,” Faye’s voice remained neutral, “I just want to know why you wanted to take it.”

Still the boy didn’t say anything. Frank shook him by his shoulders, not excessively, but enough for Faye to give him an exasperated look as he sharply told the boy ‘ _ she’s talkin’ to you _ ’.

The ‘she’ referred sighed, rubbing under her eye,

“Kid? How ‘bout we help each other out, eh? You help me put me put my display back and I’ll let you keep the Skittles - how does that sound?”

The child turned to her slightly, dubious and still half tucked into Frank. Faye gave a small smile, growing when the kid nodded and uncertainly took a step away stepped away from the shelter of Frank’s shoulder, though when she rose to her full height, the kid returned as if he thought she would hit him.

With quiet noise of exertion, Faye lifted the red frame display, the store quiet except for rolling wheels and the scruff of shoes against lino. For the better part of five minutes, she worked with the boy to put the display back in order,

“Do you want to tell me why you tried to steal?” she asked, not looking at the child, instead proudly looking at the rotating candy rack. The kid still didn’t reply, and after a few moments she gave a near silent huff, hyper aware of the fact her strange customer from a few days prior was still waiting to pay.

“Kid?” The boy turned to look to her as she returned behind the counter, “Theft is wrong, but if you’re really in a place where you have to, you can always ask for help.”

Frank watched her as she spoke with the kid, passing his eyes along her features, from the genuine kindness in her eyes, to the good natured curve of her mouth, to the stray strands of hair poking out of the corner of her cream hijab, to the golden pin keeping it secure.

When the doorbell jingled shut, Faye’s eyes slid to Frank’s,

“Thanks for helping an’ sorry for the wait. Have the dime candies on the house,” the barcode scanner beeped as she spoke, “Is that all?”

“Ms. Kim, is it?” Frank asked, turning to the back of the store,

“Faye, actually.” She smiled when Frank opened the refrigerator door and paused to look at her, mouth curving into a thoughtful pout in for a flicker of a moment,

“Ms. Faye, you’re a good woman,”   
With a shake of her hands for emphasis, she gave a laugh, “It’s just Faye. No miss or ma’am.”

“You’re a good woman,” Frank repeated, his mouth curling into a smile as he returned to the counter with a Snapple, grabbing a packet of jerky in passing. 

He paid with a crumpled ten, a smile and a ‘ _ have a nice day, ma’am _ ’.


End file.
